


Awareness and Wanting

by clerati



Series: Spite and Sweat [1]
Category: X-Men (Original Timeline Movies)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Infidelity, canon divergence - between 1 and 2, mostly plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-22
Updated: 2020-07-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:20:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25443046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clerati/pseuds/clerati
Summary: John finds himself uncharacteristically patient in waiting for Rogue.
Relationships: John Allerdyce/Rogue, RYRO - Relationship, some Bobby Drake/Rogue
Series: Spite and Sweat [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1884847
Comments: 4
Kudos: 13





	Awareness and Wanting

There is a simplicity to their courtship. John is loud and brash. He’s as simple as he is dangerous. John is as soon to make a scene as he is to kiss her poisoned lips, to slide his tongue into her mouth with the determination of a man unafraid of being broken. 

He inspires in the core of her something like the willful recklessness in the click and scratch of his lighter, as if they pose no threat at all, when one wrong move could drop that windproof flame and burn them to ash, except that maybe any drop between his hands is a trust fall. 

She tries not to look at it, not to respond to it, not to feel it as certainly as that their blood pumps in unison. She tries, except that she vibrates for him, he becomes the focal point of any moment, he magnifies any thought or feeling until the intensity of it becomes unbearable.

Rogue is sure of how John feels for her, yearns for her in a way that is so wholly his that she can’t replicate it, can’t withstand it without reducing at the edges. He begins breaking her down without noticing. Rogue is sure of how she feels for him, and she’s afraid. 

She pivots; she shies away from him and without fully understanding it, she reaches for Bobby and instantly she feels relief like a cold shower, sudden and unsatisfying but effective.

* * *

Bobby doesn’t like to think about the past. He doesn’t like to think about how close she was to not choosing him. He doesn’t like to think about how John’s fire reflected excitement in her eyes, how his voice made her fingers twitch, how his body made hers lean forward until they were too close to be mistaken for friends. 

Bobby tries to remind himself that they’re together now, except…

Bobby catches her breath hitch when John locks in on her, how he strides toward her with a predatory intensity that claims possession just as he pretends indifference. Bobby sees the solidity in her when John’s body approaches hers, and how they lock their steps together like the earth bore them both at the same tick of the clock. 

He holds her hand, but John holds her attention and maybe her heart. 

When John makes her smile, she’ll bite her lips together afterward like a chaser, slipping her tongue between them, and they’ll sit afterward parted and flushed. Bobby thinks he’d have to kiss her to create the same effect, except he can’t kiss her. Bobby holds her hand with cotton separating their skin, but when John looks at her in those moments just before they realize he's watching, Bobby thinks she’s naked under that gaze. 

And when one day it all stops, when one day they stopped stealing glances at each other all together and their bodies become calm and still in the presence of the other, Bobby’s blood gets warm with the nervous energy of a man who knows more than he’ll admit, and he’s not sure how long he can stand the combustion.

Bobby doesn’t like to think about the past, but he wonders if the present is much improved.

* * *

John finds himself uncharacteristically patient in waiting for her. 

He watches her play it safe with Bobby and he wants to think less of her, but she steals moments alone with him and he can feel the anger that sits at the surface of his psyche blister and crack away. He can’t catch the feeling of loathing her or himself or anything anymore. 

She makes him smaller, and he finds himself enjoying the feeling. Instead of feeling unsafe, insecure, on guard, he is still and sure underneath her. 

She systematically peels away at him until all that’s left is wit and strength, and love. Her version of him is the first he’s ever thought was worth a damn, and he thinks she must agree as she lays butterfly kisses in a trail up his neck, clenching his shirt in a gloved fist. 

They don’t talk about her boyfriend, though they should. He almost forgets to mind as she grinds herself against him.

* * *

Rogue remembers their first kiss. They were alone in his room, under the guise of waiting for Bobby. Maybe it started that way, but she moved to sit at the end of her boyfriend’s bed and John moved from across the room to sit next to her before her toes even settled against the floor. He was close, but she couldn’t feel his skin pushing against her sleeve. The awareness left her wanting. 

He was quiet and she looked straight ahead, completely focused on the inch of air between them, willing herself to move away but not really wanting to. She turned to say something, anything to break the moment, and found that he was leaning toward her, his face, his lips, his nose too close for propriety, and she raised her gaze to his eyes that burrowed into her.

His gaze flickered to her lips as they caught between her teeth, sharpening as they parted for a heavy exhale, and the soft blue darkened with desire or determination or both at the sheen of spit and flush. He seemed to take an inch without thinking before darting his eyes back to hers, full of apprehension. He stilled, and without thinking herself, she turned her body toward his, the denim at her knee striking his own, and he was spurred forward again, saying her name as a question. She felt her resolve melt into the warmth spreading through her whole body at the sound of that. He gave one more inch and their noses brushed, and like a starter pistol went off, they both dove the rest of the way, connecting at the mouth like a return to self. 

She was still processing her surprise at how soft his lips felt against hers when he took her bottom lip between his teeth with just the slightest pressure, eliciting a sob of relief that gave him opportunity to lick her lips, enter her mouth, and she was surprised at how she figured out what to do simply by following his lead. 

His veins rose grey against his skin, but he held against her with the fever of a man learning to breathe for the first time. She shied away from him, but he followed her with soft, enveloping pecks before fear of his resolve overcame her limbs and she pushed him away. He didn’t resist as she created space between them and seeing how pale he’d become, she wondered if he had been too weakened to make the effort, except then she noticed the devotion in his eyes. 

She shifted away from him, and the moment ended with a hard beat. She suddenly felt cold without him, and for his part, he crossed back to his own bed at the other side of the room but made no attempt at ignorance that their relationship had changed. The arrogance in his smirk stirred inside her hard enough that she forced her gaze on the door for Bobby’s entrance, as if it was imminent.

* * *

Bobby is surprised at her gentleness when he kisses her. It’s the first one he’s landed in a while. He’s hungry for her, and she reciprocates slow and soft until he has to shoot away from her like he’s been hit with a hot iron. He pants and heaves until his heart starts back up, and as sure as anything else, he’s holding her against him again as he begs with his mouth against hers. 

She’s pliable and reciprocal. She opens up to him with the slightest pressure, inviting his tongue into her mouth or her nipple budding underneath her shirt at the urgency of his cold breath. He risks slipping his hand between the zipper of her jeans to feel her wet through her panties, and she spreads her legs further in approval. They maintain eye contact as he fumbles for her clit through the fabric, and it feels more intimate then any skin-to-skin they’ve shared. Her eyelids flutter shut and an escalation escapes her lips when his fingers sweep over the gold. He keeps on like that, varying speed, shape, pressure, anything and everything based solely on her response, over and over even as her hips buckle and his hand slips past the hem of her panties to brush against her skin. 

He takes the burn of it because he’s never held her like this before, never held anyone like this, and he’s watching her restraint unravel into a feral power that he thought was reserved only for John, and that makes him think that this is her first time too. If nothing else, he’s still got that.

* * *

Rogue kisses him with none of the usual passion, and he tries not to notice except they’re bodies are out-of-sync. Still, John pushes himself to his limits with her powers, holding her at the hem of her jeans, kissing her hard, tracing her hairline, waiting for her to take control of the situation between them but happy to do his best in the meantime. 

“John” she says like an exhale against his lips, and relief creeps into his blood before she continues. “John, wait, stop.”

He pulls away from her without hesitation, but with a cold sweat. He holds his breath and some intrinsic fear drives the desire from his eyes as they bare at her, a clearer blue then she’s ever seen them. He hovers on top of her still, her thighs tightening around him to discourage any further physical distance as she prepares herself for the emotional injury she is about to inflict. 

“John,” she says again. A pause as she takes a deep breath. “We need to talk about Bobby.”

His gaze falls away in disappointment, and his lips close together. One of his hands snake to his back and push her legs away to disentangle himself, and in just a few heartbeats, he’s pulled away from her to sit at the edge of her bed, back facing her. She’s freezing. 

“I love you.” she confesses, and she registers in that moment, watching his stillness, that he already knew that. Still… “Do you love me?”

His head turns so that she can see the profile of his face, but he’s not looking at her. “Yeah.” he says simply, waiting for her to make a martyr of their love, and turns away again.

She can feel his dejection, and it makes her nauseated. She pivots, sure that he’ll return to her if he looks her in the eyes. She gets off the bed, undresses fully like she’s somehow more naked without her clothes on, and then walks to him slowly. 

His face lifts up when she enters into his field of vision, and he thinks of all the ways his imagination failed him in comparison to the truth of her skin. She’s paler in a lot of places then he could have realized, never having seen her bared stomach or thighs, or any of her in between. She stands in front of him, first unmoving, letting his eyes dart every which way until they settled back into hers, and then she kneels, coxes his legs open by stroking his inner thighs, covered still, and places herself in-between them, sitting back with her ass against the floor, looking up at him imploring for forgiveness. 

“I want to be yours, just yours, like you’re just mine.” she says.

And as much as he’s been waiting to hear that sentiment, he can’t ignore the twist in his gut. “Why now?”

She debates telling him the details of how Bobby touched her, but she can’t imagine how it would help him to hear them. “Because it’s overdo.” she says. 

He holds her gaze with apprehension, even as his skin is flushed with experience of seeing all of her. He wants to touch her, wants to lift her up and bury himself in every inch of her, wants even to leave kiss marks scattered across her every limb, but she has dictated every second of their relationship and he’s not going to start arguing against it now. He waits for her next move, patient and faithful, even if a little insecure. He’s come to terms that there would always be room for feeling of inadequacy in him, and he takes comfort that with her that insecurity doesn’t turn itself into anger as a crutch. 

“Because…” she began, “because it never should have been him.”

He exhales a breath he’s been holding since the moment he first heard her voice without seeing her, from that moment she took hold of something inside him he hadn’t known was there. 

He’s sitting there with the love of his life kneeling between his legs, her head tilted up at him but far below his own, her dark eyes wide and soft, and something clicks. He brings his hand to her hair, dragging his fingers through a few times before softly grabbing a handful and pulling her head back, bearing her throat to him. He looks at her a while, compliantly still in place, and he extends his hand to let her hair slip out away, bringing his hands to guide her up and onto his lap by her shoulders, relishing when her mouth lowers onto his.

He lets her take as much of him as she wants, lets her pull her mouth away, push his hand from her waist, ass, breasts, manipulate their position, their limbs, their knowledge of each other. He understands that he’ll have her just like this for the rest of his life without ever having to worry that she’ll take too much again.

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to write something where Rogue chooses Pyro, not because Iceman is weak or unfaithful or mean, but because Pyro is the better match for her.


End file.
